...Because We Live in a Time When People Must be Convinced to be "Pro-Mountain" (Video)

If you're a regular reader, you may have been subjected to one or two (or five or fifteen) of my anti-mountaintop removal polemics. I stand by all of them. There's simply nothing so elementally abominable as the practice of detonating an entire pristine mountain range just to get at its coal seams a little easier.

Sure, it destroys or contaminates streams and rivers, sullies the surrounding environment, and leads to health woes in local communities. There are all kinds of empirical reasons that this particular process of extracting coal from our natural environment is exceptionally detrimental to society.

But let's forget empirics and get to the brass tax: We're blowing up fucking mountains. We're exploding majestic monoliths that predate our existence by millions of years. That's all it should take to rouse a primal opposition to the practice, which the vast majority of Americans already oppose. Unfortunately, we live in an era where we have to launch political campaigns to end the violent destruction of cherished, ecologically crucial scenic environments. So, some Tennesseeans are doing exactly that:

That ad is airing on Fox TV stations across the state, in support of the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Protection Act, which would prevent mining companies from blowing the tops off mountains 2,000 ft or higher. Which would be a good start.